Principal Software Development Engineer

Expedia Group brands power global travel for everyone, everywhere. We design cutting-edge tech to make travel smoother and more memorable, and we create groundbreaking solutions for our partners. Our diverse, vibrant, and welcoming community is essential in driving our success.

Why Join Us?

To shape the future of travel, people must come first. Guided by our Values and Leadership Agreements, we foster an open culture where everyone belongs, differences are celebrated and know that when one of us wins, we all win.

We provide a full benefits package, including exciting travel perks, generous time-off, parental leave, a flexible work model (with some pretty cool offices), and career development resources, all to fuel our employees' passion for travel and ensure a rewarding career journey. We’re building a more open world. Join us.

Principal Software Development Engineer

This role sits within Expedia’s Traveler & Partner Service Platform (TPSP) Product & Technology organization, which builds the core capabilities and experiences that power customer service across the Expedia ecosystem. TPSP enables both travelers and partners to receive high-quality, efficient service through a combination of human support and AI-powered experiences.
We are looking for a highly influential engineering leader to help drive the technical strategy and execution for LLM-powered AI Agent servicing for Expedia travelers and partners, with experience building durable systems at scale and advanced Agentic AI engineering skillsets. This role will define and lead the transformation towards scalable, voice and chat based self-service experiences powered by AI agents—reducing customer effort while improving resolution speed, consistency, customer satisfaction, and operational efficiency.
As a Principal Software Development Engineer, you will partner with key engineering, product and science leaders to influence product direction, and execute on the long-term technical vision for customer AI servicing, drive complex cross-functional execution, and build a culture of engineering excellence and innovation in the organization. You will operate as an indispensable leader, shaping how agentic AI is designed, governed, measured, and scaled across TPSP.
In this role, you will:

• Lead the architecture, design, and delivery of complex, distributed systems that power high-scale, mission-critical services.

• Define and evolve technical strategy and roadmaps for your domain, making high-impact design decisions and setting engineering best practices.

• Write and review high-quality, production-grade code (design, implementation, tests), and drive continuous improvements in reliability, performance, security, and cost efficiency.

• Partner closely with product, program, and other engineering teams to translate business problems into end-to-end technical solutions.

• Drive operational excellence, including observability, incident response, postmortems, capacity planning, and readiness for peak events.

• Act as a technical mentor and multiplier, coaching senior engineers, influencing technical direction across teams, and raising the overall engineering bar.

• Evaluate and introduce modern technologies, tools, and patterns (e.g., cloud-native architectures, CI/CD, data/ML integrations) where they add clear value.

• Champion engineering quality, security, and compliance standards, ensuring solutions are robust, scalable, and sustainable.

Experience and Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

• 10+ years of professional experience in software development building backend or full-stack systems in production.

• Strong expertise in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Java, Kotlin, C#, Go, Python, or similar).

• Proven experience designing and operating distributed, cloud-based systems (microservices, APIs, event-driven architectures, data stores).

• Demonstrated ownership of end-to-end solutions from design through implementation, launch, and ongoing operations.

• Strong skills in system design, data modeling, and API design, with the ability to make and explain trade-offs.

• Experience with CI/CD, automated testing, and modern DevOps practices.

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with a track record of influencing across teams and organizations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience as a principal-level engineer or equivalent, setting technical direction for multiple teams or services.

• Depth in one or more of: high availability and resiliency, large-scale data processing, performance optimization, security and compliance, or platform/infrastructure engineering.

• Hands-on experience with public cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and cloud-native technologies (containers, orchestration, service mesh).

• Experience working in highly regulated or safety-/mission-critical environments, with strong attention to reliability and risk management.

• Proven track record of mentoring and developing senior engineers, and contributing to hiring and talent development.

• Familiarity with integrating data or ML-powered features into production services (e.g., recommendations, ranking, personalization, risk/fraud signals).

The total cash range for this position in Seattle is $231,000.00 to $323,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $369,500.00, which is the top of the range, based on ongoing, demonstrated, and sustained performance in the role.

Starting pay for this role will vary based on multiple factors, including location, available budget, and an individual’s knowledge, skills, and experience. Pay ranges may be modified in the future.

Expedia Group is proud to offer a wide range of benefits to support employees and their families, including medical/dental/vision, paid time off, and an Employee Assistance Program. To fuel each employee’s passion for travel, we offer a wellness & travel reimbursement, travel discounts, and an International Airlines Travel Agent (IATAN) membership. View our full list of benefits.

Accommodation requests

If you need assistance with any part of the application or recruiting process due to a disability, or other physical or mental health conditions, please reach out to our Recruiting Accommodations Team through the Accommodation Request.

We are proud to be named as a Best Place to Work on Glassdoor in 2024 and be recognized for award-winning culture by organizations like Forbes, TIME, Disability:IN, and others.

Expedia Group's family of brands includes: Brand Expedia®, Hotels.com®, Expedia® Partner Solutions, Vrbo®, trivago®, Orbitz®, Travelocity®, Hotwire®, Wotif®, ebookers®, CheapTickets®, Expedia Group™ Media Solutions, Expedia Local Expert®, CarRentals.com™, and Expedia Cruises™. © 2024 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. CST: 2029030-50

Employment opportunities and job offers at Expedia Group will always come from Expedia Group’s Talent Acquisition and hiring teams. Never provide sensitive, personal information to someone unless you’re confident who the recipient is. Expedia Group does not extend job offers via email or any other messaging tools to individuals with whom we have not made prior contact. Our email domain is @expediagroup.com. The official website to find and apply for job openings at Expedia Group is careers.expediagroup.com/jobs.

Expedia is committed to creating an inclusive work environment with a diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. This employer participates in E-Verify. The employer will provide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with information from each new employee's I-9 to confirm work authorization.